Abstract
Fabrication of monolithic UO 2 and UO 2 -Mo composites from Mo metal powder feedstock and UO 3 spheres derived from internal gelation was explored. The addition of 10 vol% Mo as a secondary phase to UO 2 led to an increase of up to 30% in thermal conductivity compared to syntheses in which only pure UO 2 was used. Using coarse and fine Mo metal powder feedstock led to different microstructures, influencing the thermal conductivity of the resulting composites.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 56-64 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 520 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2019 |
Funding
This work was supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) . The authors would like to thank Stephanie Curlin for LFA measurements, N. Cinbiz and T. Watkins for in-depth discussions, C. Silva for x-ray diffraction measurements, J. McMurray for simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) measurements, and J. Dyer for polishing selected pellets.
Keywords
- Enhanced thermal conductivity
- Internal gelation
- Molybdenum
- Uranium dioxide